Childhood sexual abuse and preterm labor in adulthood: an endocrinological hypothesis

Influence of childhood sexual abuse on pregnancy, delivery, and the early postpartum period in adult women

“…While several studies [1,51] found no differences, other authors [63] discussed a past history of sexual abuse as a risk factor for preterm delivery. Horan et al [63] hypothesize that the experience of CSA may activate corticotrophin-releasing hormone (CRH) gene expression in the brain and therefore create a vulnerability to elevated CRH gene expression in the placenta, which might lead to preterm labor.…”

“…Of the 21 studies dealing with birth in women with CSA [1,2,20,48,51,56,59,[63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74]76,77,79,80], only four presented original data [1,48,51,56]. These publications referred to birth complications [1,48,51,56], mode of delivery [1,48,51], perinatal data [1,48,51], and the place of labor [1].…”

Langfristige Folgen sexuellen Missbrauchs Minderjähriger

“…Resümee es gibt kaum einen bereich menschlichen Leidens, handelns und sichentwickelns, der nicht auch auf mögliche Zusammenhänge mit sexuellen Missbrauchserfahrungen in der Kindheit hin untersucht worden wäre; manche der in studien analysierten effekte etwa in bezug auf schwangerschaftskomplikationen und Frühgeburten [55,66,67] oder stillverhalten als Kind missbrauchter Mütter [106] konnten in der vorliegenden Arbeit überhaupt nicht berücksichtigt werden. Die befunde weisen von gravierenden Formen sexuellen Missbrauchs in der Kindheit betroffene als risikogruppe für eine Vielzahl von störungen und belastungen auch im Jugend- und erwachsenenalter aus.…”

Consequences of childhood sexual abuse experiences on dental care

“…However, women with severe abuse more often reported an influence of CSA experiences on dental care, stress during dental visits, and preference for a female dentist to a male dentist. More severe forms of abuse are also known to increase the risk for health problems, such as mental, internal, or gynecological diseases, when compared to women with less severe forms of abuse [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]31,32]. While further investigations on the effect of age at the beginning of abuse or age for the duration of abuse and the number of perpetrators on specific long-term consequences of CSA are needed to confirm their unfavorable effects on long-term consequences of CSA, an increasing number of methodologically sound studies show that a combination of several types of abuse during childhood enhances the risk for health problems as adults [23,31].…”

“…As abuse experiences at a very young age are associated with neurobiological changes [19,20], we compared women exposed to CSA prior to the age of 6 years with women sexually abused from ages 6 to 18 years. A combination of several types of abuse [21][22][23], an increased number of perpetrators [24,25], and chronicity of abuse [26] are known to negatively impact adult health.…”